2nd and 3rd co-consults

My second co-consultation (technically my first, because I ran solo on my other), taking place on Thursday, Sept. 18, was with an ESL student working on his dissertation. The consultant overseeing me silently took notes as I had him read each paragraph, after which we spent time going over HOCs/LOCs. His priority was to ensure that the content made sense to English speakers and fit traditional descriptive grammar.

I had a lot of fun with this writer. He was always open to suggestions but readily defended his word choices and sentence structure. We were both so thoroughly engaged in the session that the overseeing consultant had to stop us from time restriction. I told her I could stay longer, and so could he, so she left us alone and we spent more time covering similar issues, as well as inanimate objects assuming animate actions and such.

Before leaving, the consultant went through the issues she noticed throughout and knew an incredible amount about the topic he was addressing. They were mostly sentence revisions and a few questionable diction choices that she outlined through a cluster diagram, demonstrating that his parallel structure in one area of his dissertation referred to something entirely different from what he was trying to convey.

After my first session and officially observing six or seven sessions, I feel confident that I've mastered WC protocol. There are finer details to work out, but I am confident I will build on them as I continue to learn and grow with other consultants and writers.

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My third co-consultation (Monday, Sept. 22) was with a Tier I writer working on a persuasive essay. The overseeing consultant was a classmate who was supposed to be co-consulting, as well, but she and I teamed up and got things done. We had the writer read through each paragraph at first but quickly realized she was just half way done and hadn't developed many of her ideas.

Note to self and all: Always check when a paper is due and what the professor wants in the syllabus. Evidently the paper had been due at 5 p.m. that day, and it was...3 p.m. Or maybe 1? I didn't know this, so I started spending at least 10 minutes describing to her what she could do, and my co-consultant said "Well...what can we do for you to turn this in on time and have time to revise?" So there's that.

The client seemed to zone out at times, and I wasn't sure if it was because we were telling her to change too much, or if we were giving her too much advice...or too many revision directions...either way, the client said at the end that we had helped her tremendously, but I had no way of knowing this for sure. I guess a consultant never does. You do what you can with what you have given the time constraints and the standards and intentions of the client. It was a very interesting topic, one the consultant and I knew a lot about, but yeah. Maybe I shouldn't be as directive next time. I did ask her plenty of developmental questions, but she was in a very early stage in the writing process, which is something I need to take into account in the future.

Exercise 3B - Videos

All 3 of these videos depicted very different tutoring sessions. The first one was confusing; I wasn't sure what was going on exactly, whether the older man was tutoring everyone or if they were in groups, etc. But once I established what was going on, there wasn't much to see as far as body language. I could tell that some of the students seemed disinterested, not wanting to really do any work. The setup didn't help, since tutors were across the table from the students and they were close together, not giving much privacy and possibly making students uneasy as a result. It was difficult to tell whether anyone in the room was really engaged with what was going on.

In the second video, it was pretty obvious that the student didn't have respect for the tutor or his time, and he likely didn't even want to be there in the first place. He was disrespectful by walking in with a mouth full of food, answering his phone, and trying to ditance himself physically from the work. He didn't seem to be prepared either. The age difference between the student and tutor probably didn't help matters, as the tutor seemed to have a difficult time with the student, although he appeared to handle it well. I could tell the tutor was frustrated, but he kept calm, not moving away from the student or making him feel unwelcome. He was still polite and tried to engage the student. Eventually he seemed to get through a little bit, as the student began to look just a little bit interested. The tutor refused to do the work for the student, and instead tried to engage him in what he was there for, working on an assignment.

The third video seemed to be the ideal writing center scenario. The tutor at the beginning was very welcoming to the student, and I liked that they had cubicles to provide some privacy and keep the students from feelig self-conscious. Tutors were sitting next to students instead of across from them, and seemed to be actively engaged with the student without taking over completely. The positive body language of the tutors seemed to be reflected in the students, as everyone looked relaxed and comfortable. It was also noteworthy that the tutor walked the student to the door at the end of the session, smiling and appearing to ask the student to come back to the center. I would guess that this video is probably used as an ideal model for how tutoring sessions should look.

Third Party Observations Three and Four

Session #3

I observed my third session at the main library sattelite.

The client was named "sharon" and she was upper level undergraduate international student of Asain descent. The work that she brought in was a paper for her Journalism class. When she sat down and was asked what she wanted to work on, I believe her quote was: "I would like you to edit my grammar."

Immediatly the consultant did not focus on the paper's grammar, but rather incouraged Sharon to discuss with us her argument and where she went with the paper. After a little coaxing she convinced Sharon to read her paper aloud. After each paragraph the consultant would stop her and reveal the strong aspects of her argument and would discuss the grammar issues that she noticed. Sharon did have a few issues of grammar that surfaced several times throughout her paper. These issues seemed to be consistent with other international students from Asain discent that I have already observed. Sharon had some difficulty with pluralizing and adding possesion to proper nouns. She was also struggleing with appropriate placement of articles.

I felt that the consultant handled this session very well. Although it was obvious that the client only really wanted help with grammar the consultant was able to focus on more substance issues like structure and argument layout, while still adressing the grammar. The consultant would find a sentence that did not sound correct, and would simply ask: "Something seems a little wrong here...what do you think it could be?" By doing this she allowd the consultant to find her own mistakes. When the consultant did reveal grammar issues on her own she was sure to explain why something worked the way it did. This way the writer could learn from her mistakes so that she does not coninue to make the same grammar errors over and over. All in all I thought the consultant approached the session in an extremely unathoritative manner and made the best out of a session that in the consultant's mind seemed to start off in an innapropriate direction.


Session #4

I observed my fourth and final third party observation in the student athletic academic center sattelite. This session provided a very different atmosphere than sessions in Bessey or the library, and I would imaging the BCC as well.

Once I entered the center I learned that all student athletes are required to attend study hall in the same building for at least eight hours a week. It is also required that some students (all freshman athletes maybe) are required to do an additional two hours a week of writing center instruction.

I observed a sort of collaborative session where two clients were working on the same WRA assingment so discussed their papers together with two consultants and myself. I allowed myself during this session to add my thoughts when they seemed appropriate, up until now I have said little to nothing. The two clients had a very vague idea of what their assignment was and had done little to no work on it at all.

I was shocked at how unmotivated the two clients were academically. They both seemed very unenthused to be there and it was obvious that this was something they were required to do. Only one of the clients brought the actual assignment sheet and neither of them brought any form of paper or notebook to write in. They did free-writing and outlining on the half sheets of paper that are available in the center. I felt more like I was in a 9th grade language arts class room than a college writing center.

Eventually the session broke into two, because one of the clients realized he had another piece of writing to work on that he thought was more important, and I continued to observe the client that seemed a little more strong-willed and motivated. He was working on creating an outline for his paper and seemed to feel satisfied at the end of the session with the brainstorming and pre-writing that he had completed.

This session did not focus on grammar which was a relief, but still lacked a sense of engagment because of the clients negative attitude towards writing and the assingment in general.

Co- Consultant #1

When I sat down to co-consultant for the first time I was really nervous...
The first we did was the normal, copy the paper, read the assignment sheet, and then have the client read the paper out loud. The person was an ESL student working on a paper for her science class. The assignment was to summarize chapters of a book. The assignment was completed and the professor had commented that the summaries need to be more complete.

The way that the consultant and I worked together was that we both took turns asking leading questions. The questions we asked were mainly, "What do you think the purpose of this chapter was?", or "can you give an example?" By asking these questions the client seemed to answer the assignment much more clearly. So we had her write some of what she said down as an example of how the summary should look.

Overall me and the consultant worked well together and seemed to play off each others comments, making for what I thought a good overall session.

Exercise 3B, focusing on video #2

I thought Video #2 best demonstrated body language for a tutoring session. I could find messages in the session, which I noted in the blog post as actual dialogue. The quotations are phrases that I felt the people in the video could have been saying. These messages were reinforced with their body language and facial expressions. The student (tutee) showed stereotypical behavior one could expect from a student in college. He was disorganized and messy, yet seemed very laid-back and relaxed. From this unpreparedness, it seemed like he was basically telling the tutor "Whatever, I don't really want to be here." He was comfortable talking on the phone in the middle of the session, and seemed a bit preoccupied with other matters other than the math he came to get help with. This sent a message like, "You're not as important as this phone call." Slouching, putting his hands in his pockets, and leaning away from the papers made it seem like he wanted to give the work to his tutor and sit back and watch. After the tutor explained something to him, he seemed a little hesitant and moody. It looked like he thought the premise of the session was lame.

The tutor, during the entire session, kept his eye contact and seemed very polite. By facing toward the tutee even as he entered, it looked like a true "Welcome!" like he was ready to place all of his attention on the student. When the student answered the phone, the tutor never lost his calm - he seems like he is telling him "Stop talking on the phone, that's not what goes on in a tutoring session." When the pair finally start talking about the paper, the tutor is expressive and excited. If this part could be heard, I would guess he said something along the lines of "It's going to be all your work, I am just here for a little assistance if you need it." He openly gestures with his hands and seems happy that the student came. The tutor shakes the student's hand, basically signifying "Thanks for coming!"

Exercise 3B

Video 1 was a little strange since it is working with a larger number of students, and I was really confused when the girl in the orange sweatshirt abruptly left the room. The instructor's face made him seem confrontational to me, but this could have been because of the video quality. He moved quickly and somewhat abruptly, and even his slap on one student's arm almost seemed rebuking. The way he was almost lurking over the students' tables seemed imposing and almost dominating, as did the fact that he was standing and always looking down at the students. Standing also allowed him to have a less restricted range of motion and make broader, faster gestures. I think I would have felt extremely rushed if I was participating in whatever group work this was. However, because they had less freedom of movement, the students seemed much more open and agreeable when they interacted with each other. They were also all at eye-level with each other, which put them all on equal ground, so to speak.

Video 2 was interesting to me, because I found it a little difficult to tell who was the consultant and who was the tutor right off the bat. I initially assumed the younger man was the consultant because he was the second one to enter the room, but the fact that both men had papers ready confused me a little. Since the older man did most of the talking at first, I continued to think he was the client since the client would be initially explaining the assignment and answering questions for the consultant. However, it eventually became clear that the older man was doing too much explaining for him to be the client. The actual client's body language clearly indicated that he wasn't too interested in the session. He was late, still eating something when he entered, his papers were disorganized, and he even answered his cell phone during the session. The consultant still seemed very patient though. He always made eye contact with the student when speaking, and his hand gestures were slight and controlled.

The UM-Flint Writing Center in Video 3 seemed very welcoming and organized. The receptionist made eye contact with the student and obviously looked up the information he needed promptly. When the consultant met the student they shook hands, and she also made eye contact while smiling, which added familiarity and openness to the session. The client and consultant had a much more interactive session than the pair in Video 2, and it was obvious that there was a progressing dialogue. This consultant was similar to the one in Video 2 in that she continued to make eye contact with the student when she wasn't looking at the paper, and she also used very controlled hand gestures that indicated her interest in the work. It almost seems strange, but I can't really think of any instances of consultants using hand gestures this frequently in the sessions I have observed in our Writing Center.

"Bland Elaborations" on my 1st Client Session

This session was a very different experience from last year's client experiences. I was with a tutor who was extremely authoritative. He wrote on my paper in pen and scrawled barely readable notations on his copy while I read. My assignment was a press release, so he made sure I knew it was relient on concise words and sentences. He never asked me what I needed to work on, so we barreled through the paper. He assumed I had made up the format of my press release. I understand he was trying to make my PR look better, but I was simply using the given form from my class. Format was less important than content, which I could have told him had he given me the chance. But he concentrated on things like my title, which he changed to whatever he wanted without consulting me first. There was no "Is this okay?" It was "This will sound better. Use it." By the way, I'm not changing it to what he wanted.

He used outside sources like Google to show me examples of press releases, again to make it more professional. I actually thought this was a good idea - bringing other sources into the session is always a good idea. I did not need this, although I'm sure it would have been helpful if I had. The tutor urged me to check AP (Associated Press) guidelines, which might have added another dimension to my simple press release, but I was not looking for that! It was my first draft; I can concentrate on making it flashy and professional after the content is fixed and organized correctly... That was the most pertinent issue at hand Also, he wrote "bland elaboration" on his copy of the paper without explaining further. How would he know that I am elaborating if he didn't even ask about the assignment and its requirements?

My professor said that it would be near impossible to keep the press release to two pages. My tutor wanted me to trim it to one page! He told me that press releases were always better on one page, and I know that journalism is consistently short and sweet. This advice would be a lot more valuable in other circumstances, though. He did not know what article I was taking the information for the press release from (it was 25 pages long!) and he did not know how much information that particular piece contained and how much I had to include. How can I be blandly elaborating?! He never explained the comment to me, just gave me the paper he had written on.

While he was throwing his opinions onto my paper I found myself enjoying his frankness and honesty. Or so I thought. Toward the end of the session, I realized I liked having this tutor because he did the thinking for me. He was too easy - the only corrections that needed to be made were his, and they weren't negotiable. To me, that is NOT what a tutor at the Writing Center is for. Although some people might feel gratified by this copious amount of writing knowledge, I am not one of them.

From writing this post, I realize I am irritated by this tutor who assumes and insists that he is right without getting any background information. This session made me realize how disastrously wrong they can go if you do not assess the client's needs correctly. At the same time, it actually alleviated my peer tutoring worries - I can tell that I will never be that abrasively authoritative. I would never treat a student like they are simply a passive student who had written a "bland" paper. It was like I had no input on the outcome of my own paper! He made it seem like my considerable amount of suggestions for the paper were not as important as his. And I am an easygoing person; authoritative people and I work fine together as long as I can have a little input on the important topics. Generally.